Paul Kingsnorth's suggestion (Forget St George. It's time to celebrate Wat Tyler's Day, 18 April) to recall and celebrate England's radical tradition of rebellion, dissent and resistance is welcome and overdue, and deserves a long-term and energetic response from historians. Margaret Macmillan's book on the uses and abuses of history, reviewed in the same issue (What will happen yesterday?, Review 18 April), is a necessary reminder that this will be a challenging enterprise: the cultivation and celebration of the radical tradition needs sound research and good history as its foundation.

In the period after the second world war, British Marxist and leftwing historians tried to strengthen the postwar impetus for progressive reform by studying this tradition from the peasants' revolt to the modern labour movement, and publishing the results of their research. The late Christopher Hill hoped the British people would become as proud of 1640 as the French were of 1789. That the reform impetus soon declined, allowing a voracious capitalism to take control, was not due to any lack of quality in the historians' work. The present generation of historians can build on it, if and when it responds to Paul Kingsnorth's call to help the people articulate a righteous anger at what they have tolerated too long.Ernst WangermannUniversity of Salzburg

It is instructive that people like the Levellers and Chartists are still thought of as rebels, while the real tyrants in England's history, our monarchs and lords whose main mission in life was to maintain their privileged lifestyles, are looked back upon with pride and affection. The Levellers fought against the negative power of the monarch and lords yet we still have these institutions as if they are part of some glorious tradition, not something to be ashamed of. Our historians perpetuate this state of affairs by talking almost exclusively about the exploits of our royalty (David Starkey is at it again on TV now).Jim PragnellOtford, Kent

Your correspondent (Letters, 18 April) is right to draw attention to the increasing restrictions on political demonstrations under a Labour government. However, he was wrong in stating that demonstrations in 1834 prevented the six Tolpuddle Martyrs from being transported after they were convicted on trumped-up charges and a rigged trial.

In fact the Martyrs were transported very quickly after their conviction to penal colonies in Australia. What the trade union demonstrations with massive public support and a 200,000-signature petition did was to force the Whig government to remit the sentences, which allowed them to return home after four years. Barry LeathwoodFormer national secretary, rural and agricultural section of TGWU/Unite